(Disclaimer: I promise I typed this out with my own actual human hands. If I used ChatGPT to write this, it would probably be using words like "delve" and "tapestry" right now.) I have been reading a lot of posts lately about AI in our industry. It seems like the reaction is usually split: people are either completely ignoring it, or they are terrified about data privacy. I run a recruitment agency and I completely get the hesitation. The idea of feeding sensitive candidate data into a public model sounds like a nightmare. But avoiding the tech completely because of fear is a mistake. To stay relevant, you have to find ways to utilize these tools safely. I used to spend hours on manual admin, but I realized I was spinning my wheels on the same dumb tasks day in and day out. Here is how we are saving about 15 to 20 hours a week using LLMs (text AI) without compromising security: 1. Sourcing without the headache I stopped manually guessing keywords. Now, I use AI to generate high quality Boolean strings based on the Job Description. I run those in LinkedIn and it cuts the sourcing time in half. I also built a workflow where the AI checks candidate profiles against a specific requirements list to see who is actually a fit. 2. The "Closed" Knowledge Base (Safe Training) This is the big one for security. We use tools (like NotebookLM) to train a bot *only* on our own documents. The data stays contained. We use it for: * Drafting policies based on our past docs. * Summarizing investigation interviews or long transcripts. * Creating "podcast style" overviews of complex documents so I can listen to a summary instead of reading 50 pages. 3. Checking for Bias People say AI introduces bias, but we actually use it to help remove ours. We run our JDs and emails through the system with prompts like: *"Hey, is there any language here that’s not inclusive? Or what about exclusionary language?"* It catches things we miss. 4. The Grunt Work It handles the stuff that breaks my focus. turning images of text (like resume screenshots) into bulleted lists, creating timelines from scattered dates in client notes, or doing quick math and Excel formulas.